TO: LSU
FACULTY SENATE EXECUTIVE COMMITTEE
TO: LSU
SYSTEM COUNCIL OF FACULTY ADVISORS
TO:
COLLEAGUES WHO HAVE WRITTEN TO THE LSU FACULTY SENATE CONCERNING THE ORP
CONTRIBUTION RATE CUT
Dear Senators,
Friends, and Colleagues,
As you all know, the cut in employer contribution pass-through to ORP retirement
funds has generated a huge amount of correspondence as well as a loud
outcry. This letter is intended as an update to let you know that the
Faculty Senate Executive Committee continues to work on this issue. Three
more steps have been taken: First, we have a new page on the Faculty
Senate web site dealing specifically with the ORP problem (instructions for
accessing this page are in the copied letter below); second, we have
passed an emergency resolution relating to our plan-of-action; and, third,
I have distributed a letter to the Presidents of all Louisiana public
higher-education institutions asking for concurring resolutions from their
faculty governance bodies, all by way of building a statewide consensus and
thereby increasing the pressure on state officials to rectify this unacceptable
reduction of our retirement packages. Below you will find, pasted-in, a
copy of the letter and the resolution. This information is also being
distributed to a number of press outlets and to a variety of state
officials. Fortunately, many administrators are also participants in the
ORP System, with the result that we are getting a very high degree of
cooperation.
These three steps are among the earliest of many; this is not a problem
that will be resolved overnight. But we are going to persist. More
updates will come!
With best
wishes,
KEVIN
LETTER TO
FACULTY SENATE PRESIDENTS:
TO: Presidents
of the Faculty Senates of Louisiana Public Colleges and
Universities
FROM: Kevin L.
Cope, President, LSU Faculty Senate and Chair, LSU System Council of Faculty
Advisors
RE: Optional
Retirement Programs: Concurring Resolutions Requested
Dear Faculty
Senate Presidents and Faculty Leaders,
As most of you know, the Teachers Retirement System of Louisiana (“TRSL”)
recently announced that the portion of employer contributions paid into
retirement accounts for participants in the Optional Retirement Plan (“ORP”)
would be cut from 6.95% to 5.76%, nearly a 20% reduction. The cut resulted
from actuaries’ estimates of the sums required to pay down the unfunded accrued
liability for the TRSL, which also manages the much older “state” or “defined
benefit” plan, a plan that, somewhat confusingly, is also colloquially known as
the “TRSL.” For a colleague earning $65,000.00 per year, this cut amounts
to a reduction of $778.00 per year. This is the deepest cut in the
contribution rate as well as the lowest total pass-through contribution in the
history of the ORP.
Not only the cut itself but also the legal and administrative environment in
which this de facto compensation reduction occurred have elicited astonishment,
outrage, and chagrin throughout Louisiana higher education. Over the last
month, the LSU Faculty Senate has been working to get to the bottom of this
problem and to begin opening up alternatives for hard-working faculty members
who deserve a reasonable choice among retirement plans that suit the needs of
professionals. The LSU Faculty Senate has set up a dedicated web page in
which colleagues around the state may read both my informational letters on the
topic and may also access TRSL responses as well as preliminary studies done by
our Senate staff experts. This web page, which is frequently updated, may
be found at http://www.lsu.edu/senate/optional%20retirement%20controversy%20links
or by going to the LSU Senate web site, www.lsu.edu/senate, then clicking on the “Documents and
Links relating to the ORP” line under the “Topics and Issues Under Discussion”
heading. For those who lack the time to review these multitudinous
documents, the problem may be reduced to a few fundamentals. Those
fundamental points: Louisiana higher education is regrettably unique in limiting
higher education professionals to programs that belong to a vast retirement
system whose primary constituents are not university faculty; faculty have a
minimal input into the system (one trustee out of fifteen for the entirety of
higher education); the unfunded accrued liability, that will persist until at
least 2029, was created by a series of politically expeditious promises that
were made to non-university groups beginning long before the ORP was initiated;
and the TRSL, the mandatory manager for all plans, whether allegedly “optional”
or not, has no means or apparent intention to advocate for university faculty, a
deficiency that also characterizes most human resources departments in state
institutions.
The LSU Faculty Senate has developed a plan of action, of which this letter is
the first step, and for which the following request is the second move.
Appended below is a copy of an enabling resolution passed on an emergency basis
by our Senate last week (also available online at http://www.lsu.edu/senate/resolution%2009-09%20retirement%20contribution%20cuts.pdf
). This resolution does not pretend to analyze the details of retirement
plans but affirms that the present offerings and the rules governing their
administration are inadequate to and inappropriate for higher education
professionals. The resolution asks for collaboration and cooperation with
other faculty senates at other public institutions. The purpose of this
first resolution is to build a consensus around the state and to set up a
framework by which faculty members may seek improvement in their retirement
benefits and arrangements and by which we may, as colleagues, work together for
our common interests. I and the LSU Faculty Senate would like to ask you
and your Senate to pass similar resolutions (adapted to the circumstances on
your campus) so that we may begin to move ahead with the resolution of a problem
that is not only distressing but extremely costly.
It is important to understand that the LSU Faculty Senate is not calling for the
elimination of the TRSL as an option for those whom it serves best.
Unfortunately, that number becomes ever smaller owing to changes in the academic
career pattern that make the ORP more desirable for persons who may want or need
to make a move from one institution to another during the course of their
careers. We hope to retain the TRSL plan for those who prefer a
defined-benefit offering; we also hope to make the “Optional” Retirement Plan
one characterized by genuine options.
Looking ahead: LSU faculty governance officials are already working with LSU
System campus representatives and with the LSU System to look at possible
solutions to this problem. It is heartening that administrative officers
at all levels are receptive to our suggestions, in large measure because most
administrators are also participants in the ORP plan. Our Senate has also
appointed a faculty “Benefits Czar” to supervise an array of committees working
on all aspects of the benefits crisis. Material to our success in these
efforts is the ability to show a multi-campus and statewide consensus. It
would be extremely helpful if you, as a faculty leader, would periodically
update me concerning faculty input on this matter and, I hope, on your progress
toward passing a concurring resolution, either like the example below or one of
your own composition (encope@LSU.edu). This letter will be
sent to a variety of interested faculty, administrators, and press
representatives, all by way of informing our colleagues concerning the challenge
that we face.
Thank you very much for your help. I cannot overestimate the urgency of
this issue, which is already costing deserving faculty members millions of
dollars annually.
With best
wishes,
Kevin L.
Cope
EXEMPLARY
RESOLUTION:
Faculty Senate Resolution
09–09
“Retirement Plan Options
Appropriate for Higher Education Professionals”
Introduced by the Faculty Senate Executive
Committee at the Request of the LSU System Council of Faculty Advisors and of
the Association of Louisiana Faculty Senates
WHEREAS the Teachers’ Retirement System of
Louisiana (TRSL), the sole governing body for retirement plans for professional
employees of Louisiana higher education institutions, has peremptorily reduced
the portion of employer contributions that reach employee retirement accounts in
the “Optional Retirement Program” (ORP) by 18%;
WHEREAS higher education is represented by only
one of fifteen members on the TRSL Board of Trustees;
WHEREAS comparable higher education institutions
nationwide offer optional retirement plans both designed for and within the
influence of their beneficiaries (for example, by creating a plan administered
by a university and its members);
WHEREAS the use of monies derived from employer
contributions to service unfunded liabilities or other obligations not incurred
by members of the higher education community amounts to a “surcharge on choice”
and a form of taxation without representation or benefit;
WHEREAS the retirement and other benefit packages
offered by Louisiana higher education institutions are already among the lowest
in the nation, a situation that depresses morale and impairs both the
recruitment of promising faculty members and the retention of current faculty
members, thereby harming the reputation of our
universities;
WHEREAS multitudinous Louisiana academic
institutions (both within and without the LSU System) have expressed concern and
outrage at actions by both the TRSL and the Louisiana government that have
diminished retirement benefits to deep historic lows;
WHEREAS several Louisiana institutions have called
upon LSU to provide leadership in the defense and the advancement of retirement
packages;
WHEREAS the debate over retirement contributions
and options is a uniquely bipartisan event in that administrators are affected
by “ORP” cuts as frequently as are faculty members;
THEREFORE BE IT RESOLVED
that the LSU Faculty Senate affirms its solidarity with the professional faculty
and staff of the many and various public higher education institutions in
Louisiana; that it calls on its President and officers to continue working
vigorously with other faculty leaders to regain a reasonable and proper measure
of control over its retirement program options; that it regards the present
system and its offerings as substandard and inadequate to the needs of
professionals; and that it regards the present system as unfair, subject to
capricious political influence, and, in sum, unacceptable.
Kevin
L. Cope
Professor,
Department of English and Member, Program in Comparative
Literature
President,
LSU Faculty Senate and President, LSU System Council of Faculty
Advisors
Louisiana
State University
Baton
Rouge, Louisiana 70803 USA
Editor,
1650-1850: Ideas, Aesthetics, and Inquiries in the Early Modern
Era
Co-Editor,
ECCB: The Eighteenth Century Current Bibliography
President,
Delta Chapter, Alexander von Humboldt Association of America
Venues
Committee Chairman, South-Central Society for Eighteenth-Century
Studies
E-mail:
mailto:jovialintelligence@cox.net
or
encope@lsu.edu
Telephone:
USA + 225-578-2864
FAX:
USA + 225-751-3161
Journal
web site:
http://1650-1850.net
Journal
web site:
http://eccb.net
Organization
web site:
http://delta-humboldtians.us